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In Western Europe, off-road vehicles gain an increasing share in the new vehicle registration. In Germany, about 60% of these vehicles are equipped with crash bars of massive construction. Due to the fact that crash bars represent a new trend in road traffic, accident data are still scarce. In order to get a better understanding of the potential harm of these constructions to vulnerable road users, crash bar equipped off-road vehicles were tested according to the EEVC-WG 10 proposed sub-systems test procedure to evaluate pedestrian protection for cars. In a first assessment, four different crash bars were tested with the child headform impactor. The tests revealed that HIC values in excess of 1000 (which is the proposed limit at 40 km/h) can already be attained at impact velocities as low as 20 km/h. In a second test programme, two different off-road vehicles with and without crash bars were tested with all EEVC-WG 10 impactors.